Stony Brook uses donation for Hellenic studies

Nearly 50 years ago, Peter Tsantes stood in front of a diner he bought in a part of Central Islip that would later become Islandia.

The building, which was still being completed, had just about everything in place by then, except an identity.

“It had no name,” said Tsantes, now 82. “It was a beautiful May morning. I was impressed, with the colors of the dawn, the blue and the red. I said why not give it the name Blue Dawn?”

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Nearly a half century later and a decade after selling the Blue Dawn, which has since given way to a pharmacy, Tsantes is at the beginning of another dawn – donating $100,000 to help create a Hellenic studies program at Stony Brook University.

The school on Monday said it plans to use the donation from Tsantes and his family along with other financial support to create a Hellenic studies program with a chair of Hellenic studies and, possibly, a minor in Hellenic studies.

Tsantes, a Hauppauge resident and treasurer of the New York chapter of the American Foundation for Greek Language and Culture, his wife Despina and their children Vasilios and Sophia made the gift.

The Simons Foundation is supplementing it with a matching challenge grant, bringing the total to $200,000.

The Tsantes family gave the grant to honor Aikaterini Batouyious and her family, who brought Peter Tstantes to the United States in 1951 and in memory of his parents, Sophia (who died during World War II) and Vasilios Tsantes.

Stella Tsirka, professor of pharmacology at Stony Brook University and president of the AFGLC, and Nancy Squires, dean of Stony Brook’s College of Arts and Sciences, also made unspecified donations.

“A chair at Stony Brook University will advance Hellenic learning and culture,” Tsantes said. “I hope a Hellenic studies program at Stony Brook will attract students who want to expand their understanding.”

Tsirka added that the chair of Hellenic studies “would be a focal point for both scholarly and cultural Hellenic activities at Stony Brook University and in the community.”

While some donors have longstanding connections to schools, Tsantes and his family have connections to the region and Hellenic culture. He grew up in Greece, traveled to the United States and worked in various industries, before owning and operating the Blue Dawn from 1966 to 2000.

“It’s a very demanding business,” he said. “You have to maintain the quality of the food, the cleanliness. You have to see that the service is there. Service, clean food and quality are inseparable. You never relax.”

Born on a Greek island whose name translates as “long island,” although it was renamed Icarus, Tsantes was raised by the Batouyious family after his mother died.

“They took me in and put me through school in Greece,” he said. “They came to the United States first. After I finished high school, they brought me here in 1951.”

Tsantes went to high school in Wilmington, N.C., and then to Pennsylvania, where he had a cousin attending aeronautical school.

“I got a license as an airplane mechanic,” he said. “Then I moved here in 1955 and got a job as a mechanic at LaGuardia Airport.”

He worked for Northeast Airlines as a mechanic and inspector and planned to become a flight engineer.

“But I saw people in private business doing a lot better,” Tsantes said. “I said let me try something else.”

He worked in the produce business, waking at 1 a.m. and going to a produce market in Manhattan, loading the truck and distributing to restaurants, including diners and coffee shops.

“I retired from Northeast Airlines, bought the produce company and concentrated on the produce business,” he said. “I saw the companies I was supplying were doing better. I thought why not try to get into the diner business?”

He bought what became the Blue Dawn diner after he heard one of his customers wanted to sell the building.

He grew the Blue Dawn, a longtime fixture on Veterans Memorial Highway, off the Long Island Expressway’s Exit 57, from 66 to 175 seats in 1973, before remodeling it in 1985.

“Over the years, I accumulated a certain amount of savings,” Tsantes said. “I decided I have to contribute to society, toward education. When I went to high school, I found [Hellenic culture] is everywhere. I thought why not establish a center for Hellenic studies?”

Tsantes and four others in 2004 donated $100,000 each to create five chairs and a Hellenic studies program at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. Then he along with others interested in Hellenic culture and history focused on Stony Brook.